New Haven Promise website encourages residents to “pay it forward”

New Haven Promise, the Yale-funded initiative to send New Haven Public Schools students to college unveiled this morning, now has a website featuring inspirational rhetoric that encourages residents to “pay it forward.”

“Ournewhaven.org is our commune – to discover and fulfill the power of promises to transform a city, and us as human beings,” the site reads. “Starting with the 24 ways suggested, let’s see how far New Haven Promise can take us if we each make our own promise.”

Passages of text throughout the rest of the website continue developing on this idea of communal living and the oneness of man, and ask residents to think about what they can do, what promises they can offer, to contribute to the city’s growth. It also features videos of a New Haven student, Joel Suarez, who the website says “is going to make it” because “he’s already a dreamer.”

“But what about so many others?” the site asks of its readers. “A call to action knocking on your door. Will you answer?”